Mergzok: World Burning

We're gonna do it, folks. Yes, we're going to finish a freaking campaign. of Burning Empires. It may take us awhile, going every other week, but at this point I'm bound and determined. Burning Empires has long had a reputation as being almost unplayable, which I think is not accurate. A lot of overhead and a challenge to learn? Well yes! But unplayable? Naw. And the bits I've played of it are too good to leave it on the shelf. Revisiting it I am most intrigued about how artha and the trait vote have been repurposed into a competitive framework, which I think is really interesting.

So I pitched the game at my Torchbearer group. They accepted trying it. We sat down to burn up a world, and this is what we got. The numbers are to each stage of play: Infiltration, Usurpation, and Invasion. This is a series of negotiations. By making these mechanical decisions the setting materializes, making  unique world.

Interior World V 2 | 2 | 2 / H 1 | 2 | 3

We all wanted to be a bit more conservative at the start. I made the pitch and this one was a pretty simple agreement.

 

Partial Life (irradiated areas) V 3|0|3 / H 2|3|1

This option is about how much of the planet is actually livable. We agreed to Partial Life Support, with the areas that are unlivable by having heavy radiation.

Mostly Land V 2|2|2 / H 1|2|3

Oh, this one was specifically because they didn't want me to have Mostly Water, because I would have a huge advantage.

Naturally Tame V 1|4|1 / H 2|2|2

Again, this one was the one that everyone was the least uncomfortable with.

Low Tech Index V 2|3|1 / H 2|2|2

I rejected High Tech Index, flat. No way in hell. Lena requested Low Tech Index, and the rest of us thought it alright.

Civilian Commune V 2|2|2 /  H 2|2|2

Literally no one wanted any of the options. None. But man, Civilian Commune was the one we were the least offended by.

Factions Exist V 4|1|1 / H 0|0|0

This one was literally done because everyone thought it would be fun, the boost to my dispositions be damned. I cackled. Audibly. My glee was noted as a concern, but ignored.

Factions So Far:

Military Junta 0|1|5

Organized Crime 2|2|2

Cult Church 0|3|3

Psychologists 2|3|1

Slaves 4|1|1

Volunteer Force V 2|3|1 / H 2|2|2

Considering we already have a military junta, we figured a volunteer force made the most sense. And, again, the most even.

Paranoid Culture V 3|3|3 / H 4|4|4

Again, everyone hated it the least.

Raw Materials  V 1|2|3 / H 1|3|2

Thanks to Lena's decision to have slaves, we decided to have the planet have valuable raw resources of all kinds. It works for China, so why not us??

Standard Quarantine V 3|3|3 / H 2|2|2

This is where things got a bit tense. The players pitched a strict quarantine to me. I refused. Flat. I was already at a disadvantage in Invasion, which means that I'll have to make sure to grab a couple of different factions (military junta here I come!) and play some catch up if I wanted to have that in my back pocket.  The players, obviously, were not so willing to move. I offered them a clear advantage by having the advantage of economy. After some conferring we came to a compromise, and we wound up with a Standard Quarantine and Loosely Regulated Economy

Loosely Regulated Economy 1|1|3 / 2|2|2

And this is what we got at the end! I have a good advantage in Infiltration, and have to work to catch up in Invasion.

V 26|26|25 / H 21|26|29

Jel-10: World Burning

So this Burning Empires game is happening with my board gaming group. I pitched this game to my group as one of the most unique and intense experiences they could ever have in gaming, for better and for worse. I did not attempt to talk down the amount of overhead and the demands this game would make. During the first session I gave a general overview of the concept of the game and we began to burn up the world. Ben and Matt had never played an RPG before, whereas Nathan (who was invited specifically to play in this game! Yes, another Nathan!) and Logan had played DnD before.

We named the planet Jel-10. Because Nathan would not stop talking about jello. This whole pitch involved jello. I kid you not. Every last point we talked about involved jello.

I'm still twitching.

For those of you who don't know, Burning Empires is based off of a comic series called Iron Empires. The Vaylen, a parasitic race of flatworms that can control the minds of those they infect. But of all the races they have possessed humans are the most intoxicating to them. They've made their own races, including the Kerrn, but humans are everything that the Vaylen could ever want.

Oh, and the Kerrn? They're gigantic frog men the Vaylen made so they could have powerful bodies to inhabit. But, as it turns out, the Kerrn are able to throw off Vaylen possession. So they've broken free and live anywhere they can find a home, doing whatever they can to survive.

So Jel-10 is located in the middle of the Iron Empires and is an intergalactic pit stop of sorts. It's got a variable level of atmosphere, with poisonous bogs and areas without atmosphere, but its location is so central that people have gone there simply to profit off of its location. A loose confederation of merchant guilds have built a government called The League so they can profit off of the planet. The problem is that the government is not terribly centralized, despite their best efforts. One of the Vaylen figures of note, Sernie, is trying to unify the planet so that more profits can be made off their visitors. But due to the infighting of the planetary factions this has been impossible, aided in part by Rahn Sol. He's played by Nathan, who opposes planetary unification. Everyone is so divided there isn't even a standard planetary quarantine! Each faction has their own standards of admitting foreign goods and services, which of course has helped the Vaylen infiltrate. The other Vaylen figure of note is Lithlura Baskins, an actual Vaylen who is part of the entourage of the League. She has helped set up a Vaylen inroad on Jel-10 and is now trying to get as many important people hulled as quickly as possible.

The local people are paranoid of the Vaylen, in part because of a kerrn colony that lives on the planet. The kerrn are led by Mahximuz, a kerrn who had successfully thrown off his Vaylen host. But Mahxmiuz, who will played by Logan, has a secret: he somehow has retained the experiences of the Vaylen who had possessed him. This grants him some unusual knowledge about the Vaylen, but his mental stability can leave much to be desired at times. There's also a a Psychologist Foundation (think an intergalactic organization of psychics) that has set up shop on Jel-10, as part of the security services that the planet provides to its visitors. The organized crime element of the world has its own military junta, making it hard for The League  to bring order and peace to the bickering planet.

The initial situation is that Sernie is once again trying to call all the factions together to discuss planetary unification around The League. Rahn Sol wants to make sure that never happens. Let everyone tend to their own business and all that. We are starting in the Usurpation phase, with the Vaylen already on the planet, but trying to take over. We may or may not go to the Invasion phase, heck we may not even get a second gaming session. The disposition scores (our overall HP) are the Vaylen at 23 and the Humans at 24. 

Burning Empires is Back on My Shelf

This is a story of love, struggle, and insanity. I should not have this book back on my shelf. Like, all logical and rational thought forbids it. But here we are. This is the craziest game I own, by just such a wide margin. But it's back. It ain't going nowhere.

The instant I saw the cover I fell in love. I know it's probably not obvious as to why, but just bear with me. The back cover is the same people all hurting each other and being hulled out by the worm. By just looking at the cover I knew everything I needed to know about the game: love, betrayal, sci-fi, and giant space frogs. And who couldn't have more space frogs?

There's a correct answer to that question. No, it was not rhetorical.

And then I played an actual game. It was a short campaign, just six sessions of actual play, but it was one of the most intense things I've ever played. And yeah, we completely screwed it up, multiple times over. And yes, the game is incredibly clunky. But it was just an amazing experience: the confluence of Burning Wheel's intense character development and the clashing of two different worlds, human and vaylen, made for a madhouse of the game. I adored it.

And then I didn't run it for the next seven years.

Now, in my defense, I joined the Army, deployed, and then left in five of those years. I could barely run a game because of the schedule, period. I guess I just kinda gave up on the idea of ever having the emotional energy to get a game together. And then all of a sudden I had two Burning Wheel games, soon to be three, and I just.. I don't know. I didn't think I could get another game running.

So I sold it.

Months went by, and I just couldn't get Burning Empires out of my head. I wanted the adrenaline rush again, of running a game of that scope. I never said it was a sane desire, but I couldn't... get it out of my head. One day I found myself returning back to the Half-Price Books I had sold it to, to find that the book was still there. 

So I re-bought it. Y'know, cause that's the sane thing to do.

I'm going to try to get my boardgaming group to try this game out. It's the most unique thing I've ever played, for better and for worse. Even if I can't, this game is some sort of a guiding light in my collection. It is everything that I want a story to be like: the personal and the epic, entwined together to where the two are one.